Dance Hall Drug
by dear runaway
Summary: It was then that it hit her, hard and clear and she thinks this cannot be happening and it’s not true. BrookeLucas, character death, future fic.


_It was then that it hit her, hard and clear and she thinks this cannot be happening and it's not true. Haley was dead._

**A/N:** I'm sure all of you are getting pretty tired of me right now. I still need to update three of my other fics, start on one for a friend, and I'm posting this? I just got the sudden inspiration for it. Just so you know, this will eventually be a Brooke/Lucas fan fiction, with Brooke/Peyton friendship, along with a Brooke/Nathan/Peyton friendship. Maybe I'll pair Nathan up with someone later, but for now that isn't really important to the plot. Read on, and don't forget to review. I'd love some critique.

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**DANCE HALL DRUG**.  
_prologue._

Brooke Davis doesn't like funerals.

It was something she had realised a long time ago, when she was barely nine, barely old enough to know the concept of death. Her small, delicate hand had been connected with another more lifeless, cold one, fingers laced tightly through each other as the coffin had been lowered to the ground. Her brown, almond gaze had been focused on the figure next to her, though, watching how blonde curls hid the tears that were leaking out of hazel-green hues. "_It's okay, Peyton," _she had whispered, watching how her friend stiffened, squeezing her hand. _"It's okay to cry."_ Later that evening, she had crawled under the red covers of Peyton's bed, and wrapped her small arms around Peyton's petite waist, holding her like she had seen Anna do sometimes. _"We're going to have to stay friends forever now,"_ she whispered, hoping to see a smile linger on the other girl's lips, but nothing came. _"Because you need someone to remind you how great your mum was."_

Brooke barely remembers Anna now, wonders how she was able to forget her so quickly.

She raises her eyes from the grass her stiletto heels stand on, allows them to wander around to see the rest of the attendees. Karen is standing at the far end, and Brooke sees her eyes glistering with tears as she holds onto a small girl who looks barely two. It's her daughter, together with Keith, but to her own guilt Brooke realises doesn't even know her name. She wonders how she got so disconnected from her own hometown in such a short amount of time, knowing the answer perfectly well herself.

Looking further, her gaze falls on someone that still made her heart increase its rate, and she catches his sad, grief-stricken blue eyes with her own. It takes all her will power not to walk over, gather him into a warm embrace in attempt to take his pain away. But she knows she can't, because Lucas and her hadn't talked in a long time, and she doesn't even know whether he still considered her as a friend these days. He looks at her for a few more seconds before he turns away, instead looking at the grave in front of him.

Out of the corner of her eyes, she sees blonde curls and she turns almost instantly to see Peyton walk over towards the grave, kneeling down and putting a small, white rose onto the coffin. Brooke sees her talk, but she can't hear what she's saying aside the _I love you_ that emits from her lips. As Peyton stands up again, to say her condolences to Nathan, Brooke looks at him instead. Nathan is the worse of all, she thinks, watching how he nods automatically. His eyes remind her of Peyton's when Anna died, lifeless and void of any emotion aside grief.

"Brooke," At the sound of her name, she sees Peyton turn towards her, looking at her for a moment before she breaks their eye-contact with a shake of her head. Brooke frowns, before turning around to see who had called her name. Deb walks over towards her, and her mascara has run because of all the tears. "I'm glad you could make it," Deb tells her, holding onto a small boy that she instantly recognised from all the photo's that had been send to her. It was James. Haley's baby boy, her pride and joy.

Brooke wonders why Deb is talking to her. She and the woman had never been that close, and they hadn't kept in touch when she had left for California to attend to a fashion college her parents had arranged. So instead of answering, Brooke just nods, and then reaches out to take James' hand, which he shook vigorously and with a laugh. He has no clue what is happening around him, and she wonders whether he knows he's never going to see his mother again.

James looks up at her with an enormous smile, his brown eyes reminding her so much of Haley's.

It was then that it hit her, hard and clear and she thinks _this cannot be happening_ and _it's not true_. 

Haley was dead.

Excusing herself from Deb, she turns on her heels and leaves the scene, trying to stop the tears that were threatening to fall as she exits the cemetery through the black gates. Holding onto a nearby pole to catch her breath, a sob racks through her body as she sinks towards the ground.

Haley was dead. And it was all her fault.


End file.
